How DS9 and Voyager ruined Star Trek

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-01 03:44pm

Most people in Trek fandom seem to like DS9. Many even uphold it as an example of what all Star Trek should be. However, while it didn't suffer from the suffocating political correctness of TNG, I believe that DS9 destroyed Star Trek.

Why, you ask? Simple: DS9 destroyed the mystery.

What was it that made Star Trek special? Certainly not the technology; sci-fi is chock a-block with fancy technology. And not the spaceships; what sci-fi show doesn't have cool spaceships? No, what made Star Trek special was the sense of wonder that came from the basic setup of being explorers in a land that was both familiar and bizarre.

Star Trek TOS had the familiar (the home territories of the Federation, with its Klingon and Romulan adversaries and political maneuvers) but when they went outside the comfortable confines of the Federation's home territory to "boldly go where no man has gone before", they encountered fantasic things: godlike beings, vast single-celled life forms that could swallow a starship, flying neural networks that encompassed a planet, a Great Barrier which could make gods out of men.

TNG attempted to follow this pattern: there were the familiar confines of the Federation's home territory and its immediate neighbours, but once they dared venture beyond that realm, they found various wonders: the Traveller's realm where thought becomes reality, a hole in space occupied by an ethereal sadistic Cheshire's cat, and of course, the Borg. It was in that episode where Q uttered a line which summed this up very neatly:

"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you'd better just go home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wonderous, filled with wonders to satiate desires both suttle and gross, but it's not for the timid."

How right he was. Unfortunately, while the intrepid crew of the Enterprise was not timid, the producers of Star Trek were. For what did we find when DS9 and Voyager showed us the faraway Delta and Gamma quadrants? What lay behind the veil of Q's warning? The answer is: more humanoid aliens with ear and nose makeup. Oh yeah, and they're imperialists.

Wow. Well, knock me down with a feather; the mysterious Delta and Gamma quadrants turned out to be full of aliens who are no more exotic or culturally alien than the Romulans or Klingons! Hooray! The great mystery revealed!!!

Voyager has been widely reviled for ruining the Borg by turning them into just yet another weekly villain, and not a particularly compelling one at that. They changed from the ultimate anti-technologist's nightmare vision of the future to a standard-issue Hive species, complete with a Queen who acts as a convenient Deus Ex Machina for beating the Borg (kill her and you win). But the rot did not start there; it started with DS9, which found a portal into one of the distant parts of the galaxy that Q warned us about, and gave us ... humanoid aliens with spaceships that looked a lot like everybody else's spaceships.

The only remotely interesting alien creation in DS9 was the shape-shifting Founders, and let's face it: John Carpenter's "The Thing" was a hundred times more frightening than any Founder. Worse yet, their culture was really no different from ours (unlike the initial concept of the Borg, although that was eventually perverted into a standard-issue imperialist expansion model too). Voyager's lack of imagination was even more profound; they simply took the original Borg "technology scavenger" concept and turned it into an "organ scavenger" concept with the Videans (again, a concept so heavily used in horror/sci-fi that it generates nothing but yawns).

Would it have been too much to ask that some part of the galaxy remain mysterious? Without the mystery of the unknown, Star Trek is dead. It doesn't mean anything to boldly go where no man has gone before if you start getting the impression that it's all the same wherever you go anyway.

Comments?

Crazedwraith · Post by **Crazedwraith** » 2003-09-01 04:38pm

Reminds me mainly of GK's thoughts on ENT.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-01 04:42pm

Crazedwraith wrote:Reminds mainly of GK's thoughts on ENT.

ENT is an easy target. Going after DS9 will offend a lot more people.

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2003-09-01 04:48pm

DS9 wouldn't have been so bad if they'd run into a power like the dominion, but full of non-humanoids with exotic looking ships.

i.e Insectoids (Praying Mantis men, Bee men, etc), 'Amourphous' blobs that took barely humanoid shapes (Armus and the She'lac would be humanoid by comparison), and other stuff like that. (I keep envisioning the stuff from my Dungeons and Dragons books like Beholders)

Give them exotic weapons and abilities, and that would have made it more 'unknown'.

The same with the Delta Qaudrant.

How, as far as the Borg go, I agree 100%.
The Borg being tech-scavegers was good. Adding organic-scavenger would have been fine IF they had made it all surgical (i.e no nanoprobes)

Species 8472 was okay, if it wasn't for the rampant use of biological technology and Fluidic space. Cyberknietic ships (i.e mostly metal with really exotic-biological enchancements, like slugs that repair ship hulls by eating the metal and relaying it) would have been awesome and scarier then the primary incarnation 8472.

Heck, SPELLJAMMER (Dungeons and Dragons in Space) proved more exotic.

Now then, the DS9 War arc was very enjoyable, and Voyager had it's strengths and weaknesses.

however, I agree, the aliens were very disappointing

Post by **NecronLord** » 2003-09-01 04:50pm

Darth Wong wrote: The only remotely interesting alien creation in DS9 was the shape-shifting Founders, and let's face it: John Carpenter's "The Thing" was a hundred times more frightening than any Founder.

They would have been better if they'd engulfed people like ameoba and suffocated them...

What?

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2003-09-01 05:10pm

You left out the obvious worry of "Babylon 5 is stealing our fanbase! Quickly, make a startrek version!".

I agree with the rest though. The stories were predictable, few characters were likable, and i found the occasional ethnic stories which revolved around a black captain pretentious and patronising.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-09-01 05:19pm

I never did like DS9. It was just boring as hell to me, just sit around on this boring station and watch the same old boring aliens come and do boring things. Maybe it got better by the time of the war, but I'd stopped watching long before that.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-09-01 05:50pm

DS9 didn't kill Trek, it just took a different direction. Trek doesn't have to be about the same damned thing in every series. Sure I liked TOS and TNG, but the difference of DS9 was refreshing.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-01 05:52pm

Alyeska wrote:DS9 didn't kill Trek, it just took a different direction. Trek doesn't have to be about the same damned thing in every series. Sure I liked TOS and TNG, but the difference of DS9 was refreshing.

You can call it a mere "difference" to kill all of the mystery if you like and turn it into a standard "space fight" series if you like, but once you kill a mystery, you can never get it back. DS9 killed the mystery.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2003-09-01 06:19pm

Darth Wong wrote: DS9 killed the mystery.

By showing that some of the Gamma quadrant was ruled by the Dominion? They find new stuff in the Alpha quadrant all the time, the Beta quadrant is largely unexplored, the Delta even less so (Voyager took a narrow flight path and skipped about 20,000 - 30,000 light years) and the Gamma hardly at all.

I'm sorry but I just don't see that DS9/VOY showed that there was nothing else of interest (or mysterious if you prefer) in the rest of the galaxy.

DS9 may not have added a lot in the new an exciting department (although it did add more than you seem to be concluding) but it did not savagely curtail further development in that area either.

Atavarius · Post by **Atavarius** » 2003-09-01 06:33pm

Alyeska wrote:DS9 didn't kill Trek, it just took a different direction. Trek doesn't have to be about the same damned thing in every series. Sure I liked TOS and TNG, but the difference of DS9 was refreshing.

If more stereotypical aliens with fucked up heads is a "different" direction, than i will gladly take the beaten path.

TheDarkling wrote:By showing that some of the Gamma quadrant was ruled by the Dominion? They find new stuff in the Alpha quadrant all the time, the Beta quadrant is largely unexplored, the Delta even less so (Voyager took a narrow flight path and skipped about 20,000 - 30,000 light years) and the Gamma hardly at all.

What DW is referring to (or at least what i will be referring too) is the fact that everytime they find something "new" in the Gamma/Delta/Alpha/Beta quad, its always really the same. We get a Klingon/Romulan/insert Alien of the week species here clone.

When I watch a TOS episode I know that there will not be another Alien of the Week clone. There was always something new. Whether it be a giant space amoeba, or a creature that killed men for salt, or a planet full of people that took Chicago Mobs of the Twenties and made it the uber-Bible. In DS9 and VOY we get another alien who seems to be EXACTLY the same as many aliens we've seen before.

Even now with Enterprise where we should see 1st contacts and puzzling situations out the ass, what do we get. Moronic catsuits, more aliens of the week, and a genocidal captain. No mystery.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2003-09-01 06:50pm

Atavarius wrote: When I watch a TOS episode I know that there will not be another Alien of the Week clone. There was always something new. Whether it be a giant space amoeba, or a creature that killed men for salt, or a planet full of people that took Chicago Mobs of the Twenties and made it the uber-Bible. In DS9 and VOY we get another alien who seems to be EXACTLY the same as many aliens we've seen before.

The only difference is that TOS's aliens didn't even have forehead makeup, they were still one note races designed to convey a point, the already mentioned planet of the Mobsters, Planet of the Nazis, What if the Romans have survived? planet, What if the Cold War got hot planet, what if all the grown ups died and so on, TNG had the same thing a lot of the time and so did DS9 to a lesser degree, I can't be bothered to remember Voyager but its probably true there as well.

DS9 focused more on the main story line and thus didn't have as many varied aliens of the week but there were still a few and the morality tale stories that go along with them.

Even now with Enterprise where we should see 1st contacts and puzzling situations out the ass, what do we get. Moronic catsuits, more aliens of the week, and a genocidal captain. No mystery.

Enterprise has its aliens of the week to tell a tale sure but certainly not as much as Voyager did, in fact contrary to what many believe it does focus quite a bit upon what the usual suspect races were doing at this time (the purpose of a prequel in case some out there were wondering).

Atavarius · Post by **Atavarius** » 2003-09-01 07:26pm

The only difference is that TOS's aliens didn't even have forehead makeup, they were still one note races designed to convey a point, the already mentioned planet of the Mobsters, Planet of the Nazis, What if the Romans have survived? planet, What if the Cold War got hot planet, what if all the grown ups died and so on, TNG had the same thing a lot of the time and so did DS9 to a lesser degree, I can't be bothered to remember Voyager but its probably true there as well.

I concede that most aliens were just for the point aliens, but i am trying to argue at least there was variety and mystery. Sometimes you had aliens who were fighting for good reasons, or a planet full of mobsters, or a giant space faring amoeba, or an alien that you don't see who decides to spin your ship in a giant web. Most aliens we are seeing now carbon copies of others who are fighting for reasons we've already seen, who are defeated through bullshit technobabble or the same Deus Ex Machina we've seen before. Though i believe there is no point in drudging up names and motives of Voy's aliens of the week, i will use a common alien in most of the series. In TOS when you saw a Klingon did they ramble on endlessly about honor and battle and death? No.

Now you see a Klingon you pretty much know there will be talk of honor and such. TNG had this but to a lesser extent. And they also introduced the aforementioned Borg. Perhaps the most interesting idea for a villain in all of Trek, but by the time we got to the Borg homeland, they became the same as an Alien of the week complete with the standard Deus Ex Machina to save the day.

Take for example the TOS episode A Piece of the Action (sorry i keep using this as an example but its an episode i have seen recently). Kirk used unconventional tactics and brute force to bring about the best solution to the problem. How would this episode have gone if it was the TNG crew? DS9? VOY? They would find a way to fix without actually ever becoming known. Or the show would hinge upon that one choice that determines the fate of the whole planet but the CO is reluctant to make it, or it would have been some Trechnobabble fix with the deflector or transporter. Kirk never had a qualm about what to do and he used what was at hand to do it. Could you predict he would demand that the Federation get a cut of the mob profit? What i am trying to hit at (and maybe not too successfully) is that Trek is now predictable.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2003-09-01 08:09pm

Trek being predictable is something that happened from DS9 onwards and the point of this thread is DS9 killed Trek by disgarding with the mystery.

Even TOS was predictable most of the time once you had seen the setup of the episode, same with most TV shows.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2003-09-01 09:17pm

Meh, DS9 did do right by shoving the standard villans aside and brought a whole new empire in which to do battle. They mangled it alot, but I give them credit for it.

Voyager on the other hand, was in a different quadrant and was still plagued with episodes with Klingons and Romualns and the such. To strike off in a new direction, it sure did use the same old bull shit.

What killed Star Trek for Me? Recycling. Pure and simple. Lack of creativity and the regurgitating of plots over and over again made me lose interest in the series. I did not watch 2/3 rds of Voyager and I watched just over one season of Enterprise.

Everytime those fuckers say that they're doing something new, they recycle some bullshit that the fans like in another series and say "Wa la, we're a genious."

I hate those fuckers.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2003-09-01 09:58pm

I'd say the Rot started two years before Deep Sleep Nine ever made it to the drawing board. Midway through season four of TNG —and that series was fairly good then— was when the Mystery, Excitement and Adventure and Really Wild Things (when small, blue furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small, blue furry creatures from Alpha Centauri) was progressively abandoned in favour of As The Enterprise Turns. More and more, TNG became about the soap-opera of the crew; a love affair here, some facile personal dilemma there, or another tedious episode of Data's witless exploration of humanity (one of Q's most brutal yet accurate observations), while the Enterprise's mission of exploration turned into the patrol of the outmarches of a bloated empire (thank you, Prof. Galen).

The Rot definitely set in before the advent of Deep Sleep Nine and its Fascist Forehead Aliens™ hobbled onto the stage.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-09-01 10:35pm

Atavarius wrote:If more stereotypical aliens with fucked up heads is a "different" direction, than i will gladly take the beaten path.

That wasn't the fucking point of DS9. DS9 wasn't about exploring new territory (although they did this to an extent in the first three years of the show). It was about a grander scheme with politics centered around a very important space station.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-01 10:41pm

Alyeska wrote:
Atavarius wrote:If more stereotypical aliens with fucked up heads is a "different" direction, than i will gladly take the beaten path.
That wasn't the fucking point of DS9. DS9 wasn't about exploring new territory (although they did this to an extent in the first three years of the show). It was about a grander scheme with politics centered around a very important space station.

The point remains that the fantastic "mysterious" frontier alluded to by Q turned out to be nothing of the sort. Poof! goes the sense of wonder.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-09-01 11:02pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Alyeska wrote:
Atavarius wrote:If more stereotypical aliens with fucked up heads is a "different" direction, than i will gladly take the beaten path.
That wasn't the fucking point of DS9. DS9 wasn't about exploring new territory (although they did this to an extent in the first three years of the show). It was about a grander scheme with politics centered around a very important space station.
The point remains that the fantastic "mysterious" frontier alluded to by Q turned out to be nothing of the sort. Poof! goes the sense of wonder.

Again, that was NOT the point about DS9. DS9 was about taking esblished Trek and expanding upon it in a different angle. It wasn't about exploration, there was no final frontier, there never was a mystery. DS9 and TNG are very different shows set in the same series. It is like comparing Law & Order with Friends. Both are in the US and both are in New York, but they are entirely different concepts.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2003-09-01 11:05pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Alyeska wrote:
Atavarius wrote:If more stereotypical aliens with fucked up heads is a "different" direction, than i will gladly take the beaten path.
That wasn't the fucking point of DS9. DS9 wasn't about exploring new territory (although they did this to an extent in the first three years of the show). It was about a grander scheme with politics centered around a very important space station.
The point remains that the fantastic "mysterious" frontier alluded to by Q turned out to be nothing of the sort. Poof! goes the sense of wonder.

To be fair, I think Patrick Degan is right. The rot started to occur even before DS9 started.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 2003-09-01 11:08pm

Well, what more is there to do? Even in all of scifi.
Xenophobes- done
Zealots- done
Insect Races- done
Godlike people- done
a race of all gay men- done
an undefeatable enemy- done
technology gone out of control- done
a magical talisman- done
spacial disortions- done
a link to the afterlife- done

What, Mr. Wong, is left? Call me narrowminded (it won't be the first time) but there is nothing left out there aside from Godlike People, Magical Science, Magical Phenomena, and big and bad military forces. You are a much smarter and more innovative person then I, so can you think up anything new where every other scifi writer has failed?

What more magic is there?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-01 11:11pm

Alyeska wrote:Again, that was NOT the point about DS9. DS9 was about taking esblished Trek and expanding upon it in a different angle. It wasn't about exploration, there was no final frontier, there never was a mystery. DS9 and TNG are very different shows set in the same series. It is like comparing Law & Order with Friends. Both are in the US and both are in New York, but they are entirely different concepts.

You're still evading the point. DS9 did explore. They went into the Gamma quadrant and encountered new species, new civilizations. And they were all the same as the ones at home. Once more, Poof! goes the sense of mystery.

PS. I see Patrick's point about how the latter seasons of TNG were shit, and I agree. However, DS9 did something which was essentially irreversible; they took the mystery of the frontier, EXPLORED INTO THAT FRONTIER despite Alyeska's claims to the contrary, and found nothing. TNG stopped exploring, but DS9 explored just enough to find the same old shit.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-01 11:20pm

Jeremy wrote:Well, what more is there to do? Even in all of scifi.
Xenophobes- done
Zealots- done
Insect Races- done
Godlike people- done
a race of all gay men- done
an undefeatable enemy- done
technology gone out of control- done
a magical talisman- done
spacial disortions- done
a link to the afterlife- done

What, Mr. Wong, is left?

Actually, some of my examples from TOS already went outside your boundaries, so you obviously missed a beat, didn't you?

Besides, the point remains that they didn't have to touch virtually the entirety of the galaxy during DS9 and Voyager and find the same old shit. That's what kills the sense of wonder. As I said before (and which apparently escaped your attention), why couldn't they leave some things mysterious?

Call me narrowminded (it won't be the first time) but there is nothing left out there aside from Godlike People, Magical Science, Magical Phenomena, and big and bad military forces. You are a much smarter and more innovative person then I, so can you think up anything new where every other scifi writer has failed?

Things not tried in DS9 off the top of my head:

- A planet-wide fungus which has developed intelligence
- Aquatic species whose spaceships are filled with water
- Societies with more than two fucking legs, for fuck's sake, instead of being the usual humanoid with ear and nose makeup
- Regions of space where the laws of physics are truly different, meaning that the part of the ship which intrudes into this region immediately starts disintegrating and everybody in that section dies

I'm sure I could think of more if I spent time thinking about it.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2003-09-01 11:30pm

PS. I see Patrick's point about how the latter seasons of TNG were shit, and I agree. However, DS9 did something which was essentially irreversible; they took the mystery of the frontier, EXPLORED INTO THAT FRONTIER despite Alyeska's claims to the contrary, and found nothing. TNG stopped exploring, but DS9 explored just enough to find the same old shit.

In what manner?

TNG even in its earlier season wasn't finding something radically different each week (and neither was TOS for that matter), just because Q gave a proclamation (2 years after the wormhole had been found and 1 year before exploration of the Gamma quadrant was curtailed) that wondrous exploration awaited humanity and then it didn't materialise immediately meant that DS9 destroyed the mystery of trek.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-09-01 11:34pm

Darth Wong wrote:You're still evading the point. DS9 did explore. They went into the Gamma quadrant and encountered new species, new civilizations. And they were all the same as the ones at home. Once more, Poof! goes the sense of mystery.

PS. I see Patrick's point about how the latter seasons of TNG were shit, and I agree. However, DS9 did something which was essentially irreversible; they took the mystery of the frontier, EXPLORED INTO THAT FRONTIER despite Alyeska's claims to the contrary, and found nothing. TNG stopped exploring, but DS9 explored just enough to find the same old shit.

DS9s explorations were done for a very different reason then in TNG. They were designed to push forward the plot of the entire series. Finding the same old shit was invetibable because the exploration was only designed to introduce the Dominion. To tell you the truth, I think they abandoned the exploration concept all together after the first few years in favor of the continuity of the latter years.

I've always said that DS9 spent the first two years figuring out the premise of the show and spent the third year getting geared up for it. The Defiant started the change and the war with the Klingons and the introduction of Worf sealed the shows fate.

They might have failed at the exploration at the begining, but in the end that wasn't the point of the show anymore. Watching the show and saying it failed at exploration is like watching a Police drama and saying it fails as a comedy. That wasn't the point of the series. Not all DS9 fans are Trek fans, and not all Trek fans are DS9 fans. It was a different show and a new concept for Trek. Personaly I think Trek ought to have done what Law & Order did. Concentrate on two different and distinct style shows in a connected universe. Have a TNG/TOS type show with the mystery of exploration while having a more political show dealing with already established Trek. It goes without saying you need good writers to pull it off. Personaly I would want continuity in both, good continuity.

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How DS9 and Voyager ruined Star Trek

How DS9 and Voyager ruined Star Trek

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